


Making Trouble

by gollumgollum



Category: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 13:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gollumgollum/pseuds/gollumgollum
Summary: It’s taken Tom years to figure Soap out, and he’s nowhere near done yet.A late-night slice of life with a side of unexpected feelings.





	Making Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Canon-typical language, including use of a homophobic slur and jokes about Tom being fat; arguable biphobia; far too much smoking; mild abuse of Cockney rhyming slang.
> 
> Much love to [alierakieron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alierakieron/pseuds/alierakieron) for the beta, and for understanding how people who are bad at feelings express themselves.

He’s kipped out on the couch when Soap gets home, in what’s becoming something of a habit. It’s embarrassingly domestic, innit; Tom passes out most evenings in front of the custard waiting for Soap to come home for the night, like a housewife or a kept lady. Which he’s not, thank you very much—Tom's earned every minute of sleep he's able to steal. 

He comes around to the sound of pots and pans in the kitchen, not quite banging around but not exactly quiet neither. He’s standing before he registers the steady chop of blade against board, the knife slow and careful. 

Soap’s got his shirtsleeves rolled up, his collar open at the neck, standing barefoot at the counter. Tom can’t see his front but he knows from months of looking now that the tail of his tie is still absently tucked into his shirt, out of the way of flame and sauce and all the other detritus of the kitchen. Tom knows better than to sneak up on Soap when he’s got a knife in his hand, so he leans on the doorframe and lets himself look, eyes trailing down the curve of Soap’s back, the curl of hair at his nape, the rhythm and swing of his shoulders as he works. Tom quite likes this view, and he quite likes the fact that no one else ever gets to see it. 

“Did you eat?” Soap asks, not turning. It comes out as one word, his jaw pushing the consonants out all in one go, the vowels smashed up behind them. 

Tom yawns as he crosses the short distance between them, accepting the unspoken invitation. He curls an arm around Soap’s waist, rests his nose against the soft skin at the back of his neck. “No,” he murmurs, still sleepy. Soap smells like gin as well as his usual mix of kitchen, tobacco, and Brut. Tom can’t help but nuzzle under Soap’s ear, chasing the scent of him. “You drunk?” He’s more curious than anything else, really. 

“No,” Soap replies, and there it is—that little lean back into him, the barest shifting of his weight, like he can’t help but be pulled in by Tom. Not drunk, then, but not sober, neither. Tom smiles against his neck. He can’t help himself. 

“No Russians tonight, then?”

“No, thank fuck.” Soap fucking _hates_ the Russians, who drink too much and talk too loudly and take up the same table for hours. They’re fucking up the real estate, too, and worst of all everyone has to make nice with them these days because they have a shitload of money. It makes Tom wish for the old days, where their misfortunes were at least local. “It makes me miss the Cold War, when we were ready to bomb each other into the fucking Stone Age,” Soap says once, and to be honest Tom can relate. 

Soap’s cutting mushrooms, a pile of ham already cubed, onions still awaiting the blade. There’s a carton of eggs in the fridge, Tom thinks, and he can follow the clues Soap’s left and come to a conclusion. “Make me one?” he asks as he lets go of Soap’s waist and takes a step away, mindful of his space. Soap’s a bit like a cat—pet him for a minute when he wants it and you’re probably fine, pet him too long and you’re likely to come away bloody. 

He nicks the pack of fags out of Soap’s shirt pocket on his way, leans against the sink to light one. Soap doesn’t even turn his head when Tom holds it up to his lips, just takes a drag, continues his tipsily careful chopping. This is how Tom reeled him in, one cigarette at a time, lighting them and handing them over like it made any sense at all, like he was doing Soap an absent minded favor. Until the night they’d been stumbling home with Hatchet Harry’s deadline hanging over their heads and Tom had lit a pair of cigarettes and held one out, only to find Soap looking back at him, perplexed, over the top of the one he was already holding. 

“You’re drunk,” Soap had said, but there’d been something uncertain in his tone, like he’d just realized the ground beneath his feet wasn’t quite as solid as he’d maybe thought. 

“Yes?” Tom had replied, not recognizing the way out that was being offered.

Soap had taken a long drag of his smoke, eyes never leaving Tom, then flicked it into the gutter. He’d knocked Tom’s extended hand aside and pressed him back against the brick then kissed him, hard and bruising, like a challenge or a dare. “Come home with me,” he’d said, and that was that; Tom had followed him home and never really left.

Now Tom takes the cigarette from between Soap’s lips, takes a drag, knocks the ash into the sink. Soap’s breath ghosts across his fingertips as he puts it back. In a way, it feels more intimate than anything else they do, and there’s a lot of things they do that most would consider rather fucking intimate. It’s taken Tom years to figure Soap out, and he’s nowhere near done yet. The way they’d bicker even as Soap kept Eddy or Bacon’s bodies between them, or both; the way Soap went quiet around men he didn’t want to fight with but would snap and spar with Tom every hour of the day. The knives—Christ, the knives. Tom’s gotten along on being tall and opportunistic and mostly hard-nosed enough to make his deals, and it keeps most from seeing the fact that he’s a big softie when it comes to Soap. Soap’s the reverse—short and small, often overlooked, always underestimated. He doesn’t pick fights, just watches, waits for the right moment. 

Right now he’s watching Tom eye up the cutting board as he chops onions. “You nick a mushroom, I’ll take a finger,” he threatens. It confirms the suspicion that’s been crawling stealthily up Tom’s spine ever since he first caught sight of the set of Soap’s shoulders, the undercurrent of gin. They don’t joke about fingers. Not since Harry. 

“What about an onion, then?” Tom asks, stealing the cigarette back, because he knows if he asks right out Soap will shut down and he’ll never find out. Tom’s skilled in the art of deception, the skinniest fat man anyone knows. 

It works; Soap shoots him a quick look, mock incredulous. “Are you that fat, Tom, that you can’t wait long enough for the onion to cook?”

“Maybe,” Tom shrugs, playing it cool as he sucks in a lungful of smoke. “Maybe I like onion raw.” 

He very much does not, and not only does he know it, but Soap knows it. He keeps shooting looks at Tom, which means he keeps slicing without looking at his hands, so for his own safety Tom just stares him down coolly until he shrugs. “Go on, then.”

With exaggerated movement and great panache, Tom reaches over to the cutting board without breaking eye contact, trusting Soap not to let him cut himself on the knife he’s now holding still. His fingers find a bit of slimy smoothness, and before he can think on it he pops the entire chunk into his mouth and bites down. 

There’s a moment where neither of them move and Tom thinks maybe this won’t be so—and then the taste of onion explodes across his tongue, sharp and acrid and _fucking awful_ , Christ. 

He keeps it together for all of two seconds before his traitorous eyes water, and the last thing he sees before everything goes blurry is the wry look on Soap’s face, fond and amused. Tom gives in and bends in half, bracing his hands against his knees and wheezes as Soap laughs at him. “Jesus,” he manages after a moment, once he’s finally swallowed the offending object. “They making them stronger these days?” 

Soap’s still giggling at him, eyes bright, his knife abandoned on the cutting board. “You’re an idiot,” he says imperiously, although his ill-contained laughter ruins the effect somewhat. He steals back the cigarette and makes short work of the remaining onion while Tom acts like he's dying, and Tom knows at least some of the tears in Soap’s eyes are from laughter. 

“Get the eggs,” Soap tells him when Tom finishes off their shared cigarette, once he can breathe again. “And don’t think I’ll be kissing you tonight, onion breath.”

“We’ll see about that,” Tom says, giving him a lecherous waggle of his brows, because he’s managed to shake loose the knot between Soap’s shoulderblades with his antics. Soap just rolls his eyes and shoves Tom at the fridge, but he’s still got a hint of a smile tugging up his lips. 

Tom tells Soap some ridiculous, forgettable story for the next few minutes, mindless chatter above the sizzle of the pan while Soap works. He fetches them each a beer when Soap plates their food, sliding the omelette onto one plate with a deft twist of his wrist. They sit at the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen, feet tangling together as they trade turns spearing bites of egg. Like all of Soap's cooking the omelette is just right, and somehow exactly what he wanted. _Proper domestic,_ Tom thinks, Soap’s ankle warm against the arch of his foot. 

Except. “Bacon came round today,” Soap says. Tom does his best not to show it, but he’s paying attention with every fiber of his being now. 

“Yeah? What’d he want?”

Soap shrugs, poking at a piece of ham. “Says he hasn’t heard much from us these days. Asking what we’ve been up to.”

“What’d you tell him?” He’s trying to think of the last time he’d seen Bacon—two weeks ago, no, maybe three, wasn’t it? When he'd been moving that jewelry.

“Told him the truth,” Soap says, as if Soap ever tells the entire truth. “We’ve been busy.” They have been, is the thing. Soap’s working harder than ever, trying to get his restaurant off the ground, and with Nick the Greek done his vanishing act, Tom’s been hustling to fill the empty spaces before someone new decides to get their fingers in. 

“Ain’t he and Eddy been busy?” Tom asks. He doesn’t actually care what Bacon and Eddy are up to, at least not when it doesn’t involve him, but he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Busy enough, I guess. He didn't say much about that. You know what else he told me?” Soap’s being casual, like they’re just catching up, but Tom has a feeling he’s working round to something that he won’t like. 

He shakes his head. “Haven’t the slightest.” 

“He told me he’d heard that you and I had gone domestic,” Soap says, and it takes all of Tom’s willpower to keep his poker face. “That we’d shacked up.”

“Oh.” It’s all Tom trusts himself to say. 

“And I wondered, who could he have heard that from? Because I sure don’t go about telling anyone my business.” Soap’s still eating, but Tom knows without looking that he’s watching him carefully. 

“I, ah, might have mentioned it, last I saw him,” Tom says, giving up and reaching for his beer. “That a problem?” 

He expects sharp, biting Soap. He doesn’t expect confusion. “You told him?”

Tom shrugs. “Might have,” he says around the rim of his bottle. “Honestly, I don’t remember whether or not it came up.” 

Soap’s frowning at him now, not saying anything. Tom, because he can’t help but push his luck, reaches for the last mushroom on the plate, even though it’s right in front of Soap. The fact that Soap lets him take it without comment is more troubling than anything yet said. “That alright?” Tom asks softly. “I don’t think I told him nothing sordid, anyway.”

Soap looks down abruptly, dragging his fork through the wreckage of their supper. “Don’t it concern you none?”

“Eddy’n Bacon’ve been living together for their entire adult lives and no one blinks. What makes you think anyone’s gonna care about us?” 

Soap rolls his eyes and that’s familiar, at least. “That’s different.” 

“Not as far as anyone else knows,” Tom points out. “‘Sides, I thought you liked Bacon.”

“I do like Bacon.” Tom is quite convinced that Bacon is Soap’s favorite, if only for the lack of shit he needs cleaned up, metaphorically speaking. Eddy’s great and also the worst, the kind of guy they wouldn’t be half as good of friends with if he weren’t a hustler that stood a decent chance of making them some bees and honey and who also had a dad what owned a bar. Tom knows that he himself has a tendency to become blindsided by the resale value of the trees in front of him while missing the entire bleeding forest, and he’s crap about remembering to do the washing up. If he’s being completely honest, there are days he thinks that Soap only puts up with the lot of them because Bacon’s so easy to get along with. Tom’s okay with that, but only because he is very, very sure that Bacon is very, very straight. 

Oh. “He’s not gonna—“

“I know he’s not,” Soap cuts him off, that knife edge back in his voice. “He’s not, and Eddy won’t neither. But what I don’t know is whether they’ll say something to the wrong somebody.”

“So what if they do?” Tom challenges. “You’re not afraid of nobody.”

Soap just stares at him for a long moment. “Is that what you think?”

“Of course it is,” Tom says, and it’s true; Soap doesn’t pick fights, sure, but the one thing that had kept him afloat when all the Harry nonsense was going down was that Soap was clever and fearless and would figure out some way to even things up if they couldn’t come up with the scratch. “Name one person you’re afraid of.” 

Soap’s still staring. “You, you idiot.” And he gets up, then, leaving Tom gaping after him like Soap had just delivered a two by four to the side of his skull. 

Tom almost scrambles after him, but some sense prevails before he manages to make things worse. Instead, when Soap doesn't reappear, he does the washing up, another cigarette hanging from his lips as he scrubs egg from the pan. What the hell had he said to Bacon, anyway?

He’s cleaning Soap’s knife, the weight of it cool and heavy in his hand, when Soap pads back into the kitchen. He’s gone and changed out of his nice things, and something deep in Tom’s chest always aches when he thinks about how he’s the only person who ever sees Soap like this—soft and rumpled, all of his sartorial sharp edges replaced by an old t-shirt with an illegible logo and flannel trousers that are fraying at the hem. His hair’s a mess, too, like he’s been running his hands through it. 

He doesn’t say anything, just comes up behind him and rests his forehead against Tom’s spine, between his shoulder blades. Tom wants to say a hundred things, the words all crowding each other on his tongue, but he waits. He makes himself think about Soap’s knife, the lecture he got about its care and handling before he was even allowed to wash it, the way it balances in his hand just so. He cleans it carefully, making sure to get all of the onion and ham off, then dries it and sets it in the rack before balancing the butt of his cigarette on the sink’s edge. 

Soap’s still leaning against him and he’s out of dishes, so Tom risks turning around. Soap lifts his head until he’s facing him, then lets it fall forward against Tom’s sternum. He's got his arms at his sides still, fingers holding the hem of his shirt like he's afraid of what he might try to grab onto.

Tom brings his arms up, slowly, carefully, until they’re loosely encircling Soap’s waist. When Soap doesn’t flinch or pull away, he rests his chin gently on the top of Soap’s head. “I’m not scary,” Tom murmurs into his hair. 

Soap snorts quietly against his chest. “You’re terrifying,” he counters, barely audible. 

“Nah,” Tom says, aiming for easy but betrayed by the barest tremor in his voice. “Marshmallow straight to the core.” 

Soap’s fingers tangle in the hem of Tom’s shirt. “How long, Tom?”

Tom blinks, not sure what he’s asking. “How long what?”

Soap lifts his head but doesn’t look up at him. “How long are you going to want to play house?”

_With me,_ Tom hears. “That’s easy,” he answers, pressing a kiss onto Soap’s forehead. “For as long as you’ll have me, I suppose.” 

Soap shakes his head, though. “No. Some bird’ll come along and that’ll be it, or someone will say the wrong thing, use this against you. You’re not a fucking poof, Tom,” he continues over Tom’s protestations. “It’s alright.” 

“No it’s not alright,” Tom counters, indignant now. “As many times as I’ve had your cock in my mouth and you think that makes me what, exactly?”

“Easy,” Soap mutters. 

“Fuck off,” Tom shoots back, but there’s no bite to it. “At least you didn’t say desperate.” He tips Soap’s chin up, because this is the sort of thing that seems to need eye contact. “Listen. If you tell me we’re casual, then we’re casual. But if you tell me we’re all in, then we are all the fuck in. Alright? Not in until some bird comes along, not in until people start whispering about us.” Soap looks dubious, so he brushes a stray lock of hair from his forehead and goes in for the clincher. “Not even when you’ve got me all fattened up from your cooking and I live up to me nickname.”

“I’ll throw you over for a newer, skinnier model then,” Soap threatens, but Tom knows he doesn’t mean it. 

“Mm, I’ll have to come up with some reason for you to want to keep me around, I suppose,” Tom replies, kissing him gently.

Soap lets his forehead rest against Tom’s. “I’m not going to be your trouble,” he warns. “You start thinking like that and I’ll have you out on your arse like yesterday’s produce.”

Tom can’t help his smile, because Soap is a cat and doesn’t know how to say _I love you_ with anything but tooth and claw. “Pretty sure I’m trouble enough for the both of us, don’t you agree?” he says, and kisses Soap again. “Now what do you say we go into the bedroom and I’ll show you what I know about fucking poofs?”

Soap rolls his eyes, but Tom knows well enough to see the amusement there. “That was terrible. I can’t believe I let you suck my dick,” he snarks, but he’s letting Tom steer him towards the bedroom anyway, fingers working on the buttons of Tom’s shirt. 

"You worried about Bacon?" Tom murmurs later, his lips dragging across the sheen of sweat cooling on the nape of Soap's neck. Soap doesn't try to wriggle away from him in the period immediately post-orgasm, usually, and Tom takes full advantage of said fact to cuddle the shit out of him whenever he's able. 

"No," Soap says, sounding almost like he means it. "Not really." He rolls over to face Tom, taking a moment to rearrange things to his liking, and when he's done he's got one of Tom's legs thrown over his hip, his head pillowed on Tom's arm. "The more I think on it, the more I think it was his way of making it known." 

"What, so we knows that he knows?" Tom asks, trying to follow. 

Soap shrugs. "Something like." 

Then it clicks. "And so we knows that he don't care."

"I think." Soap shrugs again. "I hope."

"Well, I think he doesn't care," Tom decides. "And if he does, then, fuck him." 

"That's Bacon you're talking about," Soap points out mildly, and Tom sees what he's getting at; Bacon's probably his favorite of the lot, too, after Soap. 

Still. "And it's you and me that he's talking about. He ain't about to forget who we are." Who they are, and what they are to each other, all four of them. Tom still has dreams sometimes that he's back in the middle of Bacon and Eddy's bullet riddled hovel, bodies everywhere, Soap and Bacon and Eddy peering at him through broken blinds. You don't just forget that sort of thing, no matter how you try. And you don't forget the people you're in it with, neither, regardless of who puts their cock where. 

Soap doesn't say anything to that, just finally rolls onto his back, still contained in the curl of Tom's arm. "Have you got any fags in reach?" he asks. 

Tom plants a smacker of a kiss on his temple, wet and messy and ridiculous, before he rolls over to reach for the pack on his bedside table. He takes his liberties when and where he can get them, with Soap. It'll be his undoing one of these days, but he really can't bring himself to care.

And look. Tom will be the first to tell you that he doesn’t know what they’ve got, him and Soap, that he can’t figure out what you’d call it, or even if he could that Soap would never let him put a name to it. He does know, though, that Soap still accepts the cigarettes Tom lights for him. Tom’s pretty sure that as long as they’ve got that, he’s doing alright.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Trouble' is Cockney rhyming slang for wife (trouble and strife). There's a couple more instances of Cockney rhyming slang in here, but i'll let you sort them out. (Please forgive me, for i am an American who's watched too many Guy Ritchie movies.)


End file.
